By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
As Anthony and others have pointed out, even the New York Times has at last been constrained to admit what Dr. Pachauri of the IPCC was constrained to admit some months ago. There has been no global warming statistically distinguishable from zero for getting on for two decades.
The NYT says the absence of warming arises because skeptics cherry-pick 1998, the year of the Great el Niño, as their starting point. However, as Anthony explained yesterday, the stasis goes back farther than that. He says we shall soon be approaching Dr. Ben Santer’s 17-year test: if there is no warming for 17 years, the models are wrong.
Usefully, the latest version of the Hadley Centre/Climatic Research Unit monthly global mean surface temperature anomaly series provides not only the anomalies themselves but also the 2 σ uncertainties.
Superimposing the temperature curve and its least-squares linear-regression trend on the statistical insignificance region bounded by the means of the trends on these published uncertainties since January 1996 demonstrates that there has been no statistically-significant warming in 17 years 4 months:
On Dr. Santer’s 17-year test, then, the models may have failed. A rethink is needed.
The fact that an apparent warming rate equivalent to almost 0.9 Cº is statistically insignificant may seem surprising at first sight, but there are two reasons for it. First, the published uncertainties are substantial: approximately 0.15 Cº either side of the central estimate.
Secondly, one weakness of linear regression is that it is unduly influenced by outliers. Visibly, the Great el Niño of 1998 is one such outlier.
If 1998 were the only outlier, and particularly if it were the largest, going back to 1996 would be much the same as cherry-picking 1998 itself as the start date.
However, the magnitude of the 1998 positive outlier is countervailed by that of the 1996/7 la Niña. Also, there is a still more substantial positive outlier in the shape of the 2007 el Niño, against which the la Niña of 2008 countervails.
In passing, note that the cooling from January 2007 to January 2008 is the fastest January-to-January cooling in the HadCRUT4 record going back to 1850.
Bearing these considerations in mind, going back to January 1996 is a fair test for statistical significance. And, as the graph shows, there has been no warming that we can statistically distinguish from zero throughout that period, for even the rightmost endpoint of the regression trend-line falls (albeit barely) within the region of statistical insignificance.
Be that as it may, one should beware of focusing the debate solely on how many years and months have passed without significant global warming. Another strong el Niño could – at least temporarily – bring the long period without warming to an end. If so, the cry-babies will screech that catastrophic global warming has resumed, the models were right all along, etc., etc.
It is better to focus on the ever-widening discrepancy between predicted and observed warming rates. The IPCC’s forthcoming Fifth Assessment Report backcasts the interval of 34 models’ global warming projections to 2005, since when the world should have been warming at a rate equivalent to 2.33 Cº/century. Instead, it has been cooling at a rate equivalent to a statistically-insignificant 0.87 Cº/century:
The variance between prediction and observation over the 100 months from January 2005 to April 2013 is thus equivalent to 3.2 Cº/century.
The correlation coefficient is low, the period of record is short, and I have not yet obtained the monthly projected-anomaly data from the modelers to allow a proper p-value comparison.
Yet it is becoming difficult to suggest with a straight face that the models’ projections are healthily on track.
From now on, I propose to publish a monthly index of the variance between the IPCC’s predicted global warming and the thermometers’ measurements. That variance may well inexorably widen over time.
In any event, the index will limit the scope for false claims that the world continues to warm at an unprecedented and dangerous rate.
UPDATE: Lucia’s Blackboard has a detailed essay analyzing the recent trend, written by SteveF, using an improved index for accounting for ENSO, volcanic aerosols, and solar cycles. He concludes the best estimate rate of warming from 1997 to 2012 is less than 1/3 the rate of warming from 1979 to 1996. Also, the original version of this story incorrectly referred to the Washington Post, when it was actually the New York Times article by Justin Gillis. That reference has been corrected.- Anthony
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jai mitchell says:
June 13, 2013 at 3:41 pm
“However, the change in temperatures during the last 5 decades are not based on changes in the sun’s intensity since that effect is pretty much instantaneous.”
Sigh… Just another guy who does not understand the concept of frequency response.
phlogiston says: June 13, 2013 at 3:37 pm
” No – that’s just a Monkton fabrication.”
I don’t think it’s a Monckton fabrication. The attribution could be clearer, but it’s properly marked “lordmoncktonfoundation.com”. I don’t even think it’s that bad, but RGB says:
“One simply wishes to bitch-slap whoever it was that assembled the graph and ensure that they never work or publish in the field of science or statistics ever again.”
Clearly he thought he was referring to the IPCC, but the graph is labelled “Monckton”, and his diatribe matches the graph in this post. It does not match the AR5 graphs that he later linked to.
Nick Stokes says:
June 13, 2013 at 3:52 pm
phlogiston says: June 13, 2013 at 3:37 pm
” No – that’s just a Monkton fabrication.”
Clearly he thought he was referring to the IPCC, but the graph is labelled “Monckton”, and his diatribe matches the graph in this post. It does not match the AR5 graphs that he later linked to.
I’m sure Monkton himself can clarify the provenance of this figure.
phlogiston says: June 13, 2013 at 4:06 pm
“I’m sure Monkton himself can clarify the provenance of this figure.”
Lord M says
“The correlation coefficient is low, the period of record is short, and I have not yet obtained the monthly projected-anomaly data from the modelers to allow a proper p-value comparison.”
It sure sounds like he’s doing the stats and graphing himself.
Nick Stokes says:
June 13, 2013 at 4:27 pm
An un-vetted person doing statistics, how shocking!
Do you assert – contrary to Monkton – that the ensemble models are spot-on in predicting the global temperature trend in the last two decades? Or are we still in the cloud of unknowing?
Hmmm, I was never too good in math. But let me give this a try. We are about 5 years through solar cycle 24, and in this cycle, the sun is very quiet. Solar cycle 23 lasted for 12.6 years, and the sun was very quiet during this cycle as well. In fact, there were 821 spotless days for the sun during cycle 23, and that level of spotless days or more was only achieved about 100 years before during solar cycle 11.
But back to the math part, for which I am terrible at doing. However, I can do simple arithmetic. So the total length of years for solar cycles 23 and 24 is 12.6 years + 5 years = 17.6 years. Now, you say that global warming has stopped for 17 years?
I guess I am too simple to figure these things out. Climate is soooo complicated.
phlogiston says: June 13, 2013 at 4:36 pm
“Nick Stokes says:
An un-vetted person doing statistics, how shocking!”
I am not shocked. It was RGB who spoke harshly of it.
“Do you assert – contrary to Monkton – that the ensemble models are spot-on in predicting the global temperature trend in the last two decades?”
No, and they don’t claim to be. Basically GCMs are numerical weather programs that generate weather. But they are not forecasting weather – there is no expectation that the weather will progress just as a model predicts (that’s mostly why they disagree so much on this scale). The expectation is that, as with reality, the weather will average out into an identifiable climate. And as with reality, that takes a while.
[snip – more PSI/Slayers Junk science -mod]
Why is it when we cherry pick a start date of the year 1000 do the warmists suddenly shut up? It’s probably because of the Viking swords in their backs..
Greg Mansion says:
June 13, 2013 at 9:59 am
Greg, I’m sure there were many years when Mayan Priests threw the virgins into the pit and crop results improved. By chance of course. All the spaghetti graphs in the world wouldn’t improve the “science” of human sacrifice and crop results. Nor would or reasoned people start a dissident debate based on graphs produced by the Priests at the time even if they were on the right side of science. Mayans I’m sure were more honest and didn’t attribute their beliefs to science at all.
It seems to me many skeptics make a priority of co-opting the basic warming talking points which are a pure fallacy. Causal assumptions about the temperature stats always peeve me. Lowering the logic bar is essential for the AGW believers and the temp stat graph does exactly that. It doesn’t matter long-term about the short-term changes of the graph, if you accept the talking point you’ve lost an important piece of logic in the farce of AGW debating.
There should be a lot more qualifying important points about the AGW scam if people comment on the temp stat and the “pause” from the skeptical side. Then again many skeptics live for the weeds like this of the debate which will go on forever if left to them. Monckton is slipping.
Steven Mosher says:
June 13, 2013 at 11:54 am
“Finally, there is no such thing as falsification. There is confirmation and disconfirmation.
even Popper realized this in the end as did Feynman.”
So, your first statement makes the claim that it is false to claim that there is such a thing as falsification? 😉
Seriously, I’m pretty sure that you misunderstood Popper (I can’t make be sure about Feynman but it doesn’t sound like him either). I think you must be thinking of naive falsificationalism which is not the same thing.
Cheers, 🙂
The racehorse is running to provenance, but it’s in Rhode Island. Seems skeert blue of the devil, so stridefully he avoids the point.
==========
“bring out pitchforks and torches as people realize just how badly they’ve been used by a small group of scientists and politicians, how much they are the victims of indefensible abuse of statistics to average in the terrible with the merely poor as if they are all equally likely to be true with randomly distributed differences.
rgb”
rgb, this sort of thing is the modus operandi of bad climate science. The adjustments made to the temperature record took the good high quality rural thermometers and averaged them with the poorly sited ones and apparently added something additional. The rural sites averaged 0.155C/decade trend, poorly sited 0.248C/decade and NOAA’s final adustment resulted in 0.309C/decade average in the contiguous 48. How on earth could the best model in the world, based on good physics ever “hindcast” or “project” this. Assuming the rest of the world temps are fiddled in similar fashion as they most certainly are, this would mean that the “observed” trends are even exaggerated and the departure from projections even greater.
Has Ben Santer taken a swing at anyone yet?
Sorry, I left out the link to the NOAA changes to the US Temps:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/29/press-release-2/
Nick Stokes says:
June 13, 2013 at 5:02 pm
“The expectation is that, as with reality, the weather will average out into an identifiable climate. And as with reality, that takes a while.”
I don’t think that’s right at all. From the IPCC’s Third Assessment report Section 8.5.1.1
“The model evaluation chapter of the IPCC Second Assessment Report (Gates et al., 1996) found that “large-scale features of the current climate are well simulated on average by current coupled models.””
From the above we can see that models are averaged together because doing so allows you to “simulate” the large scale features of the climate. IOW, individual models on their own do not simulate those large-scale features(if some did there would be no need to average them at all). It has nothing to do with the “time” you let a model run for.
Cheers, 🙂
The fact that there has been no warming for 17 years is an anomaly. An anomaly is an observation that cannot be explained by the assumed mechanisms, the assumed hypothesis/hypotheses. There are three standard approaches to address anomalies: 1) Ignore them (that is the most common approach, name calling is useful if there are ignorant people that persist in bring up the anomalies, the use of the word ‘denier’ is the type of imaginative approach that can be used to stifle discussion), 2) Make the anomaly go away by reinterpreting the data (GISS is an example of that approach), or 3) Develop a modified mechanism or a new mechanism to explain them away.
There is no question that the lack of warming for 17 years is real, not an instrumental error, or a misinterpretation of the measurements. The Hadcrut3 to Hadcrut4 and the GISS manipulations are pathetic warmists attempts to raise planetary temperature which only muddies the water and does not remove the anomaly.
Thermometers have not changed with time. There is no logical reason to propose a change in the laws of physics to explain what is observed. The laws of physics have not changed with time.
If the CO2 mechanism (William: Big if) does not saturate, increasing CO2 in the atmosphere should result in an increase in forcing which should result in a gradually increasing planetary temperature that oscillations with the normal ‘chaotic’ planetary mechanisms. What should be observed as atmospheric CO2 increases is a wavy asymptotically (increasing asymptotically as the CO2 forcing is continually increasing) increasing planetary temperature.
That is not observed.
The warmists have proposed that the additional forcing due to increased atmospheric CO2 is hiding in the ocean. They also tried the hypothesis that increased aerosols due to China coal use inhibited the warming. Some scallywag however noted that the majority of the warming was observed in the Northern hemisphere where Chinese aerosol concentration should be highest which should inhibit warming in the Northern Hemisphere which is the opposite of observations. The Northern Hemisphere ex-tropics warmed four times more than the tropics, twice as much as the planet as whole (which curiously is also what happens during a Dansgaard-Oeschger cycle).
The problem with the heat hiding in the ocean hypothesis is there must be a mechanism that would suddenly send the additional energy from the CO2 forcing into the ocean to stall the warming. In addition to the requirement for a new mechanism that would suddenly send heat into the deep ocean, there needs to be heat regulating mechanism that must mysteriously increase to cap the CO2 warming. (i.e. The heat hiding in the ocean must fortuitously increase to cap planetary temperature rise.)
The warmists if they were interested in solving the scientific puzzle should have summarized the problem situation and possibilities. When that is done it is clear some hypotheses are not valid.
Summary of the CO2 mechanism in accordance with warmist theory.
1) Based on theoretical calculations and measurements increased atmospheric CO2 does not result in a significant increase in planetary temperature in the lower troposphere. That region of the atmosphere is saturate as the absorption spectrum of CO2 and water overlap and there is sufficient CO2 in the lower troposphere as CO2 is a heavy than air molecule (CO2 concentration is greater proportionally at lower elevations due to its higher mass than O2 and N2) and there is a greater amount of water vapour, so increased CO2 does not theoretically result in significant warming in the lower troposphere.
2) At higher elevation in the atmosphere there is less water vapour, so all else being equal (i.e. the conditions at that elevation are as assumed by the models) the additional atmospheric CO2 should theoretically cause increase warming at higher elevations in the troposphere. The warming at the higher regions in troposphere should then by radiation of long wave radiation warm the planet’s surface.
Logical Option A:
If heat is not hiding in the ocean and the laws of physics hold, then something is causing the CO2 mechanism to saturate in the upper troposphere such that increased CO2 or other greenhouse gases does not cause warming in that region of the atmosphere. If logical option A is correct, and if the upper troposphere was already saturated, such that increased CO2 does not cause significant warming, then something else caused the warming in the last 70 years.
It is known that planetary temperature has cyclically warmed and cooled in the past (Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles) and it is known that there are solar magnetic cycle changes that correlate with the warming and cooling cycles. An example is the Medieval Warm period that is followed by the Little Ice age.
The warmists have chosen to ignore the fact that there is cyclic warming and cooling in the paleo record.
Greenland ice temperature, last 11,000 years determined from ice core analysis, Richard Alley’s paper.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif
http://www.climate4you.com/
So if the CO2 mechanism was saturated at a level of say 200 ppm, then additional CO2 has a negligible affect on planetary temperate. A new mechanism is therefore required to explain the 70 years of warming that is observed.
The above graph shows a new mechanism is not required. The same mechanism that caused the Dansgaard-Oeschger warming and cooling caused the warming in the last 70 years.
Now as the solar magnetic cycle has rapidly slowed down, we would expect the planet to cool.
If the planet cools, will know that something is different in the upper troposphere the model assumptions and the something that is different inhibits the greenhouse warming mechanism. (Inhibit is the correct term rather than saturate).
Logical Option B:
The heat is hiding in the oceans. Planetary temperature has not risen in the tropics where there should be the greatest CO2 forcing on the planet as the tropical region has the most amount of long wave radiation that is emitted off to space and there is amply water to amplify the CO2 warming. The heat is hiding in the ocean hypothesis requires particularly in the tropics that there by a step increase in ocean mixing to hide the heat in the deep ocean.
There is no observational evidence of increased surface winds why would there be temperatures in the tropics have not increased significantly. There is no driver to force heat into the deep ocean. The question is why suddenly now should heat start to hide in the deep ocean? There needs to a physical explanation as to what is suddenly changed to force heat particularly in the tropics into the deep ocean. Ignoring the fact that there is no explanation of what would turn on heat hiding in the ocean, there is an ignored problem that if there is suddenly intermixing of surface waters with deep ocean waters atmospheric CO2 levels should drop as CO2 is pulled into the colder deeper waters. That is not observed. Atmospheric CO2 is gradually rising.
jai mitchell says:
“The LIA is associated with the maurader minimum…”
+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_+_++++++++_+_+_+_+_
Admit it: you’re just winging it. Anyone who doesn’t understand the context [or how to spell] the Maunder Minimum [which refers to sunspot numbers] is only pretending to understand the subject.
Nick Stokes is here to quibble again. rgbatduke has written some very compelling posts today so Nick must punish him by quibbling over trivial points which customarily arise from Nick’s deliberately obtuse misreading of isolated statements while ignoring the most forceful and incisive arguments found in the comments. It’s his modus operandi at ClimateAudit, so I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised to witness in spades here.
Thanks to rgb for the being generous with his time and for passionately dissecting these issues in depth. Occasionally people convey a deep understanding of the core problems facing climate science and rgb did it brilliantly today. It’s comforting to know he’s teaching at a well-known university.
@Nick Stokes -> your comment
“The expectation is that, as with reality, the weather will average out into an identifiable climate. And as with reality, that takes a while.”
Given your like of the facts a man of science like myself, can you expand the factual basis on why the weather must average out and when you say “takes a while” how long is that and what basis are you using for that statement.
For the record I believe that both sides of the climate change argument is about as far from science as you can get you get and neither side should be able to use science in the description of what they are doing … it is about as scientific as astrology and horoscopes based on political agendas.
Thomas says:
June 13, 2013 at 4:17 am
as is clear from the diagram there has been warming, only not large enough to be statistically significant.
=============
Wrong. The error bars show that there may or may not have been warming. There is no way to know for sure.
That is the meaning of statistical significance. That within certain bounds you cannot say which way the answer lies. Temperature is within those bounds, so you cannot accurately say “there has been warming”.
Nick Stokes says:
June 13, 2013 at 5:02 pm
The expectation is that, as with reality, the weather will average out into an identifiable climate. And as with reality, that takes a while.
============
That doesn’t make the expectation correct. The law of large numbers does not hold for chaotic time series. You cannot calculate a meaningful average for chaotic systems over time. The result is spurious nonsense.
Obama is about to screw up our country again!
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-12/tougher-regulations-seen-from-obama-change-in-carbon-cost.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-13/obama-tells-keystone-foes-he-will-unveil-climate-measures.html
@rgbatduke says:
June 13, 2013 at 7:20 am
I’ve read thousands of posts on science blogs and this post of yours stand head and shoulders above any other that I’ve read and I’ve read many excellent ones.
I don’t know how you did it but, by God, it really hit the spot for me and I’m sure for many others too.
Thank you.
(Mr Watts, I’ve posted rgb’s full text from a H/T from StreetCred on BishopHill. Apologies if I’ve overstepped the mark and please feel free to snip)
jai mitchell says:
June 13, 2013 at 2:15 pm
@climatereason & John Tillman
–Yes, I misread his statement but then it only makes one consider. If you all think that we are actually supposed to be headed into another ice age, then why are we “recovering” from the little ice age?
And if you are all such big fans if the medieval warm period, why wasn’t the little ice age a “recovery” from that, (since we are supposed to be headed into another ice age)
it sounds to me like you are really grasping at straws here.
—————————————-
This has been explained many times to you. Either you somehow missed all the explanations or want to remain willfully obtuse.
“Recovery” means regression to the mean from excursion above or below a trendline. The world recovered from the Medieval Warm Period by returning back to the trend, then continuing on below it into the LIA. Since about 1700 Earth has been “recovering” from that cold period.
From the Minoan Warm Period 3000 years ago, the long term temperature trend line has been down, but with (possibly quasi-sine wave) cyclical excursions above & below it, all occurring naturally. The Minoan WP was followed by a cold period, which was followed by the Roman WP, followed by the Dark Ages Cold Period, interrupted by the lesser Sui-Tang WP (the peak of which was lower than the Roman & the subsequent Medieval WPs), followed by more cold, then the Medieval WP, followed by the remarkably frigid LIA, followed by the Modern WP. The trend line connecting the peak of the Minoan, Roman, Medieval & Modern WPs is decidedly down.
There is no prima facie case for any significant human effect on climate unless & until the Modern WP gets warmer than the Medieval, which hasn’t happened yet. Each recovery from the preceding cycle, whether warm or cold, has peaked or troughed out at a lower temperature, based upon proxy data, such as the Greenland ice cores. This is just one of many inconvenient truths about CACCA.
Had you really tried to study & understand Dr. Aksofu’s graph, you would grasp this simple concept instead of clutching at CAGW straws.